Ok, so me an slava are here in Barcelona, Spain. He's out shopping for underwear right now and I'm in an internet café (Alt+130) using some PC here. I could not find any place here to hook my iBook up to here and that's a... bummer. I only found this place because slava found a map to it in the hotel and he's good at following maps. They keep playing Michael Jackson music at this café...
While exploring the city, we found some neat shops on some of these streets and the the Rambla mall thingy. We thought they were unique. Then we realized that there are about 5 kinds of shops in Barcelona and they all sell the same stuff: Jewerly, T-Shirts, general clothes, electronics, and raw meat or pastries.
Speaking of meat, I've noticed something else odd about this place, their meat looks real. Their bacon looks like it came from a pig, their sausage looks like it was really wrapped in something (and tastes funny), and their seafood looks real. Compare this to the United States where everything looks fake and processed. The sausage looks like it was not wrapped and has a uniform shape, the bacon looks straight, And the seafood is "groomed". I like the processed looked more as it distances me from realizing that an animal was butchered horribly and en masse. This gives me comfort and doesn't decrease my appetite as much.
One more annoyance of Spain (Barcelona at least). They don't have enough soda! In the US I go to a restaurant or fast food place and they just keep bringing more and more soda over even if I don't ask for it. Here they give me little 20cl. bottles of coke and I have to pay for each one. At the seafood place we went to yesterday, I went through 5 bottles and that's low for me! I kept asking for 2 bottles at a time. The first time I did this, the busboy(?) brought out 2 glasses, one for me and slava. The waiter told him they were both for me and the busboy(?) looked shocked. Luckily, slava had purchased two 2 liter bottles of Coke earlier so I could get more when we went back to the hotel. Personally, I prefer Pepsi (what is Pepsi Max?) since Coke makes my butt bleed. I bought six 33cl. bottles of Pepsi on the way here.
Languages are a funny thing. Neither slava nor I speak any Spanish. We can read some Spanish words and figure out some spoken words, but that's it. This becomes kind of amusing at times. For example, at the seafood place I had mentioned earlier, I wanted prawns, eggs, and potatoes as a starter (they should have translated it as "Appetizer") but they couldn't understand what I was saying so they brought out some weird pasta thing with a weird oil and some shrimp. It was good actually. Their cherry tomatoes are to die for! Next I wanted some weird prawn thing but they gave me some weird prawn thing with crab legs. I don't know how to eat crab legs so I just had the prawn which was excellent and had a sauce that tasted like that stuff they put over the shrimp scampi at Red Lobster (butter and garlic or somesuch). The desert they brought me was actually the same as I ordered. It was some apple flat pastry with vanilla ice cream and fudge. That was really good. Slava had octopus as an appetizer, a fish and seafood paella for the entreé and a flaming pineapple thing for desert. Everything he got is what he ordered. Lucky freak. At other places, I either have to mime the thing I am asking for, or write down some weird equation. Example, I couldn't get the light on in the bathroom in the hotel. I asked a nearby cleaning lady how to turn it on and she said "No Habla Inglés" or something. I start down the elevator then get an idea (!!!). She was close to my room so I motioned for her to come into the doorway, I pointed at the light and she says I have to stick my door card into the slot on the wall to get any sort of power in the room. Humans have a connection that's deeper than language. Paying people an absurd amount of Euros doesn't hurt much either. ;)
Smoking are way too tolerated in Spain. People smoke in the train station (metro, not quite subway I think), in the aiport, in fast food places, in restaurants, in this café place, on the street, and anywhere else it's prohibited in the US. This is extremely annoying as cigarette smoke gives me migraines. Luckily, I have plenty of Duradrin. They also have cigarette vending machines all over the place. AFAIK, these were banned in the US a few years ago.
And we will have pictures of our journey here. Slava's taken about 120 pictures so far. He takes them since we go to the same places and his camera is lighter than mine.
I haven't proofread this at all and I'm on a weird Euorpean keyboard. Luckily, unlike OS X, Windows seems to have decent muscle memory so I can still use this machine fine even though I can't read any of the text.
Posted by rosyna at 06:41 AM
| Comments (13)
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Ahh, so I am back from shopping (wasn´t enough for me, actually, but Rosyna must've been getting frustrated sitting here at an odd inet cafe thingie waiting for me to finish shopping) - and thanks for the level of detail you went into when describing WHAT exactly I was shopping for, Rosyna. ... OK, I´ll cut it right here. Thanks.
Posted by: slava on December 13, 2002 6:57 AM"...I like the processed looked more as it distances me from realizing that an animal was butchered horribly and en masse. This gives me comfort and doesn't decrease my appetite as much."
hypocrite.
Posted by: mr. veggie on December 13, 2002 10:14 AMDoes this mean we'll finally get to see Rosyna without her... handle... on?
Posted by: rob w on December 13, 2002 10:15 AMSure, have all the fun while I stay here and hold down the fort....nah, I don't mind...I don't even like tasty delicacies or seeing exotic places. ;)
Try some horse while you're there will ya? I hear it tastes like chicken...or was it beef? :)
Posted by: brian on December 13, 2002 12:39 PMHow can you not know how to eat crab legs? You crack them open with the cracker they give you (and if they don't give you, ask, hehe) and you eat the meat inside. As for dealing with meat that actually looks like the animal it's from you should realize that that is what meat looks like outside of the US =).
Posted by: rincewind on December 13, 2002 8:09 PMMeat is good.
Vegetables taste bad.
Hurry back soon.
Or I'll be really sad.
Posted by: Jason Anderson on December 14, 2002 12:24 AMPepsi Max appears to be sugar-free Pepsi.
"Pepsi Max tastes and looks like a regular cola, but has no sugar. Pepsi Max is primarily targeted to male consumers, ages 18 - 29 years old, and to those consumers who are beginning to be concerned about calories and sugar, though don't want to sacrifice enjoying the MAXIMUM cola taste."
Posted by: Mike Harris on December 14, 2002 4:00 PMAhhhh, Spain.. Keep the bulls a-coming . Love that country. Brings back a lot of sweet memories. :) Barcelona especially. I'd say: go for the tapas, the cervezza's & the cafe's con leche. Luv it. Don't forget to visit some Gaudi place (the Sagrada Familia, Parque Quell or the roof of the house featured in Antonioni's Profession Reporter), the Nou Camp soccer stadium of Barcelona (the club), the Miro museum or the strangely attractive city graveyard on Mont Juich. So much to do, so little time I guess. Keep yer hands to your wallets and when some strange character tries to sell you 'chocolata' they mean something of entirely different taste - you know what.
Posted by: ton on December 15, 2002 3:51 PMThanks for the update. Looking forward to the pics! Cya!
Posted by: Mike Zornek on December 15, 2002 4:56 PMIf you get a chance, try hitting one of the islands, Mallorca or Menorca. I have been to Majorca several times and loved it immensely. Less crowded than the mainland or the larger islands, and perfect in the Mediterannean way. You can get a charter plane and travel less than an hour flight to get there. I love Barcelona though. Amazing city with so much to see.
Posted by: jeremy on December 16, 2002 4:59 PMwhy am i thinking this was Rosyna's first time out of the house?
Posted by: philzilla on December 17, 2002 3:02 PM